Tips & FAQ

25. Tips & Best Practices

Generator Actions

The Actions card at the top of the Pile Generator inspector provides:

Warning: Auto Generate / Settle is convenient but can cause editor lag on complex piles with many pieces. Disable it during bulk profile editing.

Count & Scale Overrides

The Generator supports global multipliers applied on top of the profile's settings:

These are useful for adapting a single profile to different scene scales without creating new profiles.

Performance

• •Combine meshes before shipping — reduces draw calls from N to 1
• •Texture bake for mobile/VR — URP/Lit is cheaper than the procedural shader
• •Use LODs for distant piles
• •Mark static for static batching
• •Vertex shape modifiers at 0 have zero GPU cost

Visual Quality

• •Use 2–3 layers for natural-looking piles (base + mid + top)
• •Set Color Variation to 0.05–0.15 for subtle per-piece tint
• •Use Pattern Library overlays to add detail without textures
• •Combine Smooth shading with procedural normals for high-quality surfaces
• •Use Vertex Noise (0.02–0.05) for subtle organic variation on rocks

Workflow

• •Use Live Preview during iteration (but disable for complex profiles)
• •Use Seed History to compare different arrangements
• •Generate & Settle is the fastest workflow for physics-based piles
• •Create Shape Presets for shapes you reuse across profiles
• •Use per-shape materials when a pile has mixed material types
• •Use Quick Preset for rapid single-shape prototyping

Common Setups

Rock Pile:

• •Icosahedron primitive, vertex noise 0.3, chip amount 0.2
• •Rock material type, LowPoly shading
• •3 layers: large base (5 pcs), medium mid (10 pcs), small top (15 pcs)

Book Stack:

• •Cube primitive, flat bias enabled
• •Book material type, Smooth shading
• •1 layer, 8–12 books, low rotation variance

Bottle Collection:

• •Lathe primitive with various bottle profiles
• •Glass material type, Smooth shading, double-sided enabled
• •2 layers: standing bottles (base), fallen bottles (top)

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26. Troubleshooting

Pieces don't appear

• •Ensure the Generator has a Profile or Quick Preset assigned
• •Check that the profile has at least one Shape Rule and one Layer
• •Verify the Radius is large enough

Pieces float in the air

• •Ensure there's a collider below the generator (ground plane)
• •Check that the ground is on the Surface Mask layer
• •Try increasing Raycast Height

Pieces clip through the ground

• •Enable Prevent Ground Penetration in Placement Rules
• •Increase Sink Depth slightly
• •Enable Precise Ground Check

Too many rejected pieces

• •Increase Radius or Overlap Tolerance
• •Reduce piece Count in layers
• •Disable Use OBB Collision for looser packing

Settle doesn't work

• •Ensure there's a ground collider in the scene, or enable Use Ground Plane
• •Increase Physics Steps for tall piles
• •Check that pieces aren't already intersecting the ground

Selecting the object lags the editor

• •Disable Auto Generate / Settle — it triggers a full regeneration whenever any serialized property changes
• •Use Live Preview instead for lighter auto-refresh

Shader looks pink

• •Ensure you're using Universal Render Pipeline (URP)
• •The PileGen/Triplanar shader is URP-only

Baked texture looks wrong

• •Ensure the source material uses PileGen/Triplanar shader
• •Try increasing Texture Resolution
• •Increase UV Padding if you see color bleeding between pieces

Colors flicker or shift when moving objects

• •The instance seed is pre-baked into vertex color alpha at mesh generation time and is fully stable
• •If flickering persists, regenerate the pile to ensure meshes have the baked seed applied

Icons don't appear

• •Run PileGen > Generate Editor Icons from the menu bar

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27. FAQ

Q: Does PileGen work with HDRP or Built-in RP? A: The procedural shader requires URP. Use Texture Baking to convert piles to standard URP/Lit materials, then manually swap to HDRP/Lit or Standard shader.

Q: Can I use my own meshes? A: Yes — set the primitive type to Prefab and assign any GameObject. PileGen handles placement, rotation, scaling, and physics for your custom meshes.

Q: Is there a runtime API? A: Yes. PileGenGenerator has public methods: Generate(), Clear(), Settle(), Bake(), RandomizeSeed().

Q: Can I edit the pile after generating? A: Yes. Individual pieces are separate GameObjects until baked. You can manually move, delete, or modify any piece. Settling will re-simulate from current positions.

Q: How many objects can I have per pile? A: The placement system handles hundreds efficiently. For very large piles (500+), increase Overlap Tolerance and consider splitting into multiple generators.

Q: Does it work with Unity 6? A: Yes. PileGen uses version-safe code paths for physics API changes across Unity 2022.3.62f3 and Unity 6.

Q: What's the difference between Count Override and Count Multiplier? A: Count Override replaces the total piece count absolutely (set to 0 to use the profile default). Count Multiplier scales the profile's count by a factor — useful for making a single profile produce both sparse and dense variants.

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